“So, when are you going back to work?”

It's time we start asking mothers better questions.

Dear friend,

The morning light begins to creep in from behind the dark blinds at 6:13 am. I feel my daughter begin to stir, sensing her small movements as the kind that happens just before she’s about to wake. I lay still, hoping my stillness might convince her that it’s not yet time to rise.

She too has a sense – perhaps it was the flutter of my eyelashes open, or the change in my breathing pattern – but she pops her head up and looks over to me and says, “Shhh” ( her new favourite word). She excitedly sits up with the sudden enthusiasm toddlers possess, and launches into a symphony of babbling, almost as if she’s five years old recounting epic adventures from the dreams she just had.

We begin our day. She picks out some books and settles onto the kitchen floor as I step around her in our morning rituals. With a subtle sense of urgency, I make her a breakfast plate before she remembers she hasn’t had her normal morning nursing session (part one of my long-term weaning strategy).

Our firs…